If there's one thing I've always said, it's that I love Polish people. True, we haven't always seen eye to eye on the issue of whether it's acceptable to play dance music through the night at a volume liable to remove people's fillings with the drill of a thumping bassline, and I haven't quite worked out why they can't phone home to Warsaw without standing outside my living room window and shouting, but that aside, they're all salt of the earth types and I won't hear a word said against them.

Anyhoo, Lisa and I went to Asda last night. I needed to buy the ingredients for a lasagne recipe taken from Lisa's book 'Cook Yourself Thin' (she didn't write it, she was given it for her birthday by my parents, who were clearly trying to tell her something). Despite the fact that the book is, according to its cover, "the delicious way to drop a dress size", thereby proving that sexism is alive and well, and men aren't important, I'd agreed to make said lasagne for Lisa, thereby cooking her thin and taking full credit for her weight loss.

One of the ingredients for this miracle diet dish was "1 jar of red peppers in brine", so I headed off to Asda fully confident that a shop the size of an aircraft hangar would stock such an item. Ten minutes later I'd changed my mind. They might sell eight different types of beetroot, stacks of pickled onions, and numerous jars of disgusting-looking cabbage and olives, but the closest thing to red peppers were small pots of pickled chillis. And I refuse to burn my tongue for anyone. My dream of cooking Lisa thin was looking in tatters.

Until, that is, we arrived two aisles further down at an all-new department, recently added to the Brighton Marina branch of Asda. To my amazement, they now have a dedicated 'Polish Food' section. I was about to turn to Lisa and make a valid point about food miles and the state of Britain's immigration policy, when I noticed this...


It's Papryka Marynowana Czerwona. Or a jar of red peppers in brine. Shipped directly from Poland to the heart of the Polish community here in Kemp Town. I might not share their taste in music, but you can't fault their love of food. We'll be thin in no time.